The Mask Slips: Emily Thornberry Shows How Elitist Labour Is
EMILY Thornberry MP (Islington South) played her hand. To use the language of the anti-UKippers, the mask slipped.
Thornberry portrayed Rochester locals as working class morons, the kind of dolts who drive white vans, love football and England. On Planet Thornberry, the home she photographed and tweeted was a cultural curiosity.
Would she have pictured the home of a Pakistani mini-cab driver with a Pakistan cricket flag hanging outside in the same fashion? Of course not. She was mocking the white working class. That’s allowed.
Labour never were going to win the Rochester and Strood by-election. UKIP won with another harvested backbench Tory MP. But given the fallout from Thornberry’s attitude to voters, it’s a wonder they win anywhere.
The Sun nails it:
Thornberry was told she had erred. So she behaved with honour, well, so she says:
“Earlier today I sent a tweet which has caused offence to some people. That was never my intention and I have apologised. However I will not let anything distract from Labour’s chance to win the coming general election. I have therefore tonight told Ed Miliband I will resign from the shadow cabinet.”
Distraction done. And well done for setting the bar so low for future Labour resignations. Isabel Hardman:
Thornberry’s three-word tweet had an incendiary affect because it as opened Labour up to the charge of being too posh, too remote, too Oxford/Primrose Hill to understand a place even like Rochester – which is just a 45-minute train journey away from Victoria Station.
Anne Perkins writes in the Guardian:
It may be the most devastating message Labour has managed to deliver in the past four years. It’s already being described as the party’s “47%” moment – a reference to the observation that nailed shut the lid on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, when he dismissed the 47% of American voters who wouldn’t ever back the Republicans. So much for Labour’s fight for hearts and minds. So much for this week’s efforts by shadow cabinet members like Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves, launching policy initiatives tailored to persuade these voters, and millions of others like them, that Labour feels their pain. One click, just one click, that’s all it takes. Ed Miliband’s Labour is once again the party of the metropolitan elite.
That’s what you get when you’ve a leader whose never had a proper job…
Posted: 21st, November 2014 | In: Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
